


Reprecussions

by shadowglove88



Series: Bloodville Series [5]
Category: Blood Ties (TV), Smallville
Genre: F/M, brief - Freeform, disturbing content.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 16:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3734980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowglove88/pseuds/shadowglove88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chloe has to pay the price of setting Vicki's soul free, but won't tell Henry since he won't do what is necessary if she goes darkside. She enlists Mike as help...and Henry, ignorant of why, gets jealous. Kinda with just cause.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reprecussions

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/shadowglove88/pic/000979gx/)

  
Vicki was laying down resting on Henry's bed, while Henry spoke with her in private. This would be their first conversation since everything had happened, since apparently Asteroth had already been inside of Vicki by the time Henry had arrived, and had been playing around with everyone.

Coreen, who apparently knew morse code, was conversing with Rudy (who hadn't stopped with his 'I was trying to TELL you!' to Chloe--or so Coreen informed her). Apparently the goth girl was excited and giddy at the thought of being able to converse with the ghost, since the last one that she'd been around she hadn't been able to interact with at all.

So that left Chloe with Mike Celluci, the other side of this odd square.

After a couple of minutes talking, Chloe had managed to sum up his character rather well, and with a look at her watch she pulled him aside, deciding that he was her best bet. "Walk with me."

Giving her a curious look, the ex cop grabbed his trench-coat and nodded, following her out of the apartment building. They walked in silence on the streets of Metropolis, before he finally spoke. "So, are you going to tell me what it is you wanted to say?"

She smiled, liking his straight-forwards way. "Yes, I was just trying to think of an easy way of putting it."

He gave her a crooked smile. "Believe me, after everything with Vicki I've learnt to deal with the weird. Whatever it is you need to tell me, go ahead." He paused. "You saved Vicki, and, and I'm never going to be able to repay you for that."

The blonde looked down at her shoes. "Actually, you kinda will."

He narrowed his eyes in question. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know how versed in magic you are, but what I did back there was some _serious_ dark mojo." Chloe sighed, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small yet ancient looking book. "I got it from this book, this morning while at Henry's with Asteroth. I had hoped it wouldn't come to that, but then Vicki was already possessed and if I didn't break the sigil she'd never be free. But breaking the sigil...that was tricky...and it...it came with a price."

Mike stopped walking, face a dark frown. "What price?"

"You see, that's the thing, I'm not exactly sure what it is." Chloe replied, giving her watch another nervous look. "I know it'll take place eight hours after I broke the seal. The spell, it basically says free the soul from the seal and I will pay the penance, or something like that. And from what I got from this book, the 'penance' is paid exactly eight hours after the soul is freed---or, well, Vicki is free."

"Does Fitzroy know about this?"

She found the question a little odd. "No, and he's not going to know." The blonde put the book back away and hugged herself. "I--I don't know what exactly sort of penance you pay for breaking a demonic seal, but its not good, and I might---I don't want Henry there. He wouldn't understand, he'd glare, he'd blame himself, and if push came to shove, he wouldn't make the right choice."

For a moment Mike just looked at her, and then it clicked. "You want me to kill you in case something goes wrong."

She nodded. "The penance might be Asteroth entering me, and with no seal...he'd take over me completely with no way to get him out." There was a pause. "I would prefer to be dead before something like that happened." Chloe took in a deep breath. "But Henry wouldn't kill me. I need someone who would. And you owe me, Mike Celluci, and I'm not above calling in favors from perfect strangers."

He just looked at her.

"And it will have to be done very thoroughly." She warned him. "I---I don't...stay dead." She hugged herself. "I've had my doubts in the past that I can stay dead, but I've thought, well, in case something like this happens, I'd need to know. And so I've developed a theory on how to... _stay_ dead."

Mike kept on just looking at her.

"First just shoot me in the head, its enough to get me dead. That's the easy part. The hard part is keeping me dead." She responded, feeling slightly sick at her stomach as she discussed herself like this. "Sever my head from my body, pull my heart out. Burn everything separately. Throw the ashes of my heart down the toilet drain, bury the ashes of my head in the backyard, and just let the wind take the ashes of my body." She closed her eyes tightly. "If my...if my body can't...can't f-f-find itself then m-m-..."

Mike reached for her silently and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her as she trembled.

He was tall and stronger and silent and she clutched at his shirt, her whole body trembling in fear and tears came to her eyes, wetting the front of his shirt.

She wished, selfishly, that it was Henry here with her now, holding her like this.

Her cellular rang, and she ignored it, letting herself cry.

But the phone wouldn't stop.

Pulling herself away from Mike, she cleared her throat and wiped at her eyes before reaching for her cellular, wincing when she saw Henry's name flashing. She brought it to her ear, forcing her voice normal. "You know, if I was ignoring your call it meant I was busy."

Best to play as if everything was alright.

"Why are you out with Celluci?"

She blinked at the harshness in that voice. "Because I want to." She looked Mike up and down. "He's kinda handsome. And rugged." She smiled. "And I've always had a thing for cops."

Mike blinked in surprise but chuckled nonetheless.

"He was fired. He isn't a cop anymore."

Chloe wondered why Henry felt the need to point that out. "Ooh, a bad boy on top of everything? Henry. I've got to thank you. If it hadn't been for you I'd never have met him."

There was silence.

She was confused at his behavior but time was running and she... "Look, I have to go. Mike and I are going out to dinner and then maybe a movie and...who knows." She tried to make her voice sound mischievous and fun. "Don't wait up for us. You know how using magic gets me horny." She'd shared that embarrassing secret with him months ago. She would probably be seriously horny right now if it wasn't for the fact that she was scared out of her wits and very very tired. "I used some serious mojo back there, Henry. And I'm planning on getting lucky tonight."

"The _hell_ you are!" He snarled, voice becoming like a hundred voices combined...he'd vamped out. "Get your ass back here! Where are you? I'll come get you myself!"

"What is _wrong_ with you?" She snapped back, losing her temper for a second. "Just stay there with Vicki, Henry, she needs you! And let me have my date in peace!"

"Date?" He snarled viciously. "That's not a date. That's a hookup."

"And so? What if it was? I'm a big woman, Henry. I can screw whoever the hell I want!" And with that she hung up.

Henry called back.

She cut him off.

Henry called back.

She cut him off.

Henry called back.

She turned off the power to her cellular. "What's eating him? He's never this annoying!"

Mike looked a mixture of surprise and understanding, but Chloe couldn't ask him why because his cellular began to ring.

The ex cop pulled out his cell and grinned evilly at the phone when he saw the I.D. He brought it to his ear. "What do you want, Fitzroy?"

Chloe's eyes widened.

He wouldn't have!

Mike looked way too amused with the situation, though his voice didn't betray it. "It's none of your business.......No........No........I'm not telling you where we are.......Because she doesn't want you to come pick her up, that's why......Oh, I don't know about that, she looks in control of herself enough to know if its something she wants or if its the aftereffects of magic 'contorting her reasoning'."

Chloe's eyes widened and her mouth fell open.

How could Henry have had the nerve to say something like that to Mike!?!

"Vicki and I are only friends now so I don't see why you're bringing her into this conversation."

Chloe looked away with a sigh.

Even now Henry was thinking about Vicki, about how if Chloe and Mike 'hooked up' for the night it might hurt her.

He loved the woman that much.

A muscle jumped in Chloe's cheek.

Why the hell did everyone else get that sort of adoration but her?

"Fitzroy, you're being ridiculous and unreasonable." Mike announced. "I like her........don't threaten me, I still have the Illuminacion del Sol."

"He threatened you?" Chloe growled, getting enough of this.

Mike covered the receiver of his cellular. "My manhood actually."

"I can't believe him!" The tiny blonde exclaimed.

Mike smirked and was about to say something when his eyes went unfocused, his whole body relaxing as he uncovered the receiver of the phone. "Yes...." His voice was mechanical. "I will bring her to you right now..."

For a moment Chloe couldn't understand what was going on.

And then she did.

Henry had used his powers on Mike.

Tearing the phone from Mike, and thus disrupting the power of Henry's voice on the human, Chloe brought the contraption to her ear in time to hear Henry, using his Voice of Persuasion (as she liked to call it), telling Mike that Mike was sleepy and didn't want to be out and he wanted to bring Chloe to Henry. "The hell he does."

The voice paused. "Chloe."

"How _dare_ you?" She snapped at him. "Who do you think you are, Henry Fitzroy? You have no right! And if you try to call either of us again tonight I will never speak to you again, you hear me? Never!" She hung up and passed a now alert Mike the phone. "That wasn't how I imagined my maybe last conversation with him going."

Mike frowned, hand to his head. "He played his mind-tricks on me. _Again_."

"I'm sorry about that." Chloe sighed. "You're trying to help me and he's just---."

"Protecting you." Mike supplied. "Fitzroy is a pain in the ass, but he---everything he's doing is because he's protecting you."

"From you?" Chloe smirked. "No offense Mike, mano a mano I'm sure you could take me, but with my magic I could easily hurt you if that was the type of person I was."

"No offense taken. I saw how you whipped Asteroth's ass." He grinned at the memory before going serious once more. "But, well, Fitzroy...when he came to Toronto...you're all he ever talked about."

Chloe blinked, surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Coreen and 'Vicki' wanted to know all about how his life in Metropolis...and his life here consisted of _you_."

She fought back the blush. "Well, of course it did. You know Henry, he doesn't make friends easily, and we kinds work together and I'm his 'material' for his work, so obviously we spend a lot of time together so most of what he would say would have me in it."

Mike looked amused, shaking his head. "If you say so."

She gave him a confused look before gazing down at her watch. "Can we skip the night out and go straight to the night in? An hour has somehow passed and I need to do some protective rituals before...just in case..." She cleared her throat. "We could order pizza or something to be delivered...and you can help me with what needs to be done?"

He smiled. "Sounds like fun."

She smiled, back.

He really _was_ kinda ruggedly handsome.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They'd spent the next hours at her place, blinds closed, drawing the complex protection symbols that would protect Mike if she went haywire, and Chloe also taught Mike the basics of a Devil's Trap, just in case she did get possessed by Asteroth. She'd be trapped, and she would be unable to use her powers, and she couldn't get out even if Mike tried to take her out of the trap. They talked as they worked, and she found him very interesting and nice and funny, and when he took off his trench coat, undid his tie, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, she realized he had a really nice physique.

 _Really_ nice.

In those few hours she'd grown to like the easy-to-get-along-with man, but she had to admit, she would have preferred it if Henry were there. But she knew the vampire, knew that despite everything he wouldn't do what she needed him to do, and she really couldn't find it in her heart to ask him to do it either. That was why she'd placed spells on the apartment so that a vampire couldn't come in. Well, she'd spelled the place so that no one could come in (human, vampire, ghost) unless someone opened the door. She'd also placed two silencing spells, one to silence the noise from outside, and one so that no one could hear anything from inside.

Somehow, she knew that Henry had come to the door, had knocked on it and sworn viciously when he realized he couldn't break it, couldn't come in. She knew he'd stayed there as close to dawn as he dared. She knew that he'd figured out that she'd spelled him out and had probably begun to suspect that she'd spelled away the noise as well, although he persisted stubbornly.

She knew this all somehow without ever hearing or seeing him.

She always just seemed to know things about Henry.

"Are you sure this is necessary?" Mike asked, uneasy, as he finished tying her to the chair inside of the Devil's Trap.

"Yes I'm sure." She nodded, the time fast approaching. "Go out of the symbol. You're safe on the other side."

He nodded, taking in a deep breath as she stepped out and turned to her. "I don't know if I can do this."

She looked up at him, a little desperate. "Mike."

"Chloe I---there has to be another way." He tried reasoning with her, looking so worried. "I really don't want to kill you."

"If I'm Asteroth, then it's not _me_ you're killing." She told him, before suddenly screaming out in pain as inside of her bursted in agonizing heat.

"Chloe?" Mike called, about to enter the Devil's Trap.

"Stay out of the symbol!" She screamed through the pain.

It was like hell had opened up inside of her, and was burning her from the inside out.

Her skin was welting, bubbling, _sizzling_.

She screamed in agony, head thrown back.

But at least she knew what the price was.

She was going to die.

Hell was going to consume her body like it should have consumed Vicki's soul.

_I wish I could have seen Henry one last time._

That was the last coherent thought the blonde had as she burnt to death.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eyes flying open, Chloe was tired and disoriented.

Then she realized that she was naked.

And she wasn't alone.

Looking down at whomever she was lying on top of, the blonde's eyes went comically wide as she saw Mike, tied to the bed, equally naked, and under her.

Chloe tried to sit up but she was so tired, her muscles refusing to do the movement, so she just rested her head against his chest once more, trying to understand what in the world had happened.

She was supposed to be dead.

She _had_ died.

She should have _stayed_ that way this time!

And how in the world had things progressed from her burning alive to waking up naked on top of a bound Mike?

Naked?

Chloe gulped.

The room lights were on, and she could sense it was night outside.

So had all of this happened in a couple of hours? Like two maybe?

"Mike?" She whispered, too tired to move, barely able to talk.

She just wanted to sleep.

"Mike."

He groaned sleepily. "Not again...too soon...have been at it for hours...go to _sleep_ you _heartless_ hag."

She blinked, unable to keep the amused smile off of her face. "Did you just call me a hag?"

He opened his eyes and looked at her, curiously at first, and then smiled. "You're coherent. You're speaking full sentences." His smile widened. "You're back."

"I'm naked." She pointed out helpfully, finally managing enough strength to move slightly so that she could look into his face as they talked. "You're naked. And tied up." She tried to sit up then realized something, going red. "We're still...uh..."

"Yeah..." He nodded, seeming just as awkward.

She closed her eyes tightly. "What exactly happened last night?"

"Well, uh, you combusted." Mike explained, frowning, remembering. "And then, not even five minutes later you were back. You just started to form yourself again until you were lying naked on the ground, and I took you to your bed and after making sure you were okay I cleaned up the place, the Devil's Trap, and, yeah." He looked away. "Then I heard a weird sound from the bedroom around midday while I was still snoring on your couch. I went to see if you were okay, and you were awake, except that you weren't very coherent. It was like you were drugged up, and your eyes were black like when you use magic, and you could only say Mike and Need and Now and...well...I couldn't understand fast enough apparently because next thing I knew I was naked, in bed, tied up. And you were..."

She gasped in horror. "I raped you!"

Mike cleared his throat. "Yeah, well, wouldn't have worked if I hadn't been enjoying it."

She shook her head, and then blushed, remembering something he'd said while half asleep. "What do you mean for _hours_?" She then gasped. "Wait! You mean I combusted _last_ night?"

He nodded.

"Shit!" She tried to get off of him but was too tired. "Its night! Henry will be awake!"

"And pissed." Celluci predicted. "My phone's been ringing nonstop for hours but we were---and then I was..." he gave a tug at the bounds on his hands.

Saying the words, Chloe's eyes flashed black as Mike's bounds set him free. "I'm so sorry for that I---I never really after a spell---despite how I---and then those were two very strong magics working through me---I must have snapped...my magic taking over so I could release some of the...uh..." She closed her eyes in utter embarrassment. "Kill me now."

Mike chuckled, carefully working his way out from her, and from underneath her, resting her on the bed and covering her nakedness with the sheet that'd fallen on the floor god knows how long ago. "I remembered...later...about what you said happens when you do magic or have magic worked through you." He brushed the hair from out of her face. "Sleep. You need more rest now that you've...worked it out of your system. I'll order more food, and phone the others to let them now we're okay."

"Don't tell Henry. Will be...mad...I didn't..." She whispered, already falling asleep, so tired. "Open..door...stop...magic..."

And then she fell asleep, not sure if he'd understood her.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next thing she heard was vicious snarling and things being broken and screams.

"Henry! Don't! Stop it Henry! You're killing him!" Vicki's voice was terrified.

"Henry!" Coreen gasped, pleading. "Please!"

"Stop it you stupid vampire!" Lois could be heard arguing. "Chloe is going to wake up and kick the _shit_ out of you if you hurt him!"

"I don't care!" Henry's voice was like a million in one, and terrifying, it was unlike anything she'd ever heard. "I'll tear him apart! I'll make it so that he _begs_ that I kill him!"

Chloe groaned, her body a mess of pain and soreness and oversensitivity. " _Henry_..."

There was silence, and then there was a thud (accompanied by a groan of pain as a body hit the wall), and a gust of wind, and then there was a cooled hand on her cheek. "Chloe?"

She whimpered, turning into that delicious coldness, feeling better, less painful. "M'so tired."

"Chloe you idiot." Henry's voice was wobbly, tight. "Did you think I wouldn't be able to smell it in the air? The sulfur? What the hell happened here?" He then snarled viciously. "Stop smelling like that!"

"I don't smell like sulfur." She denied, although it would make perfect sense if she did.

Her words were sluggish, her eyes still closed, her body half asleep, refusing to wake up completely.

"No, you smell like _him_." The words were a vicious growl.

"Hmmm." She agreed, beginning to fall asleep again, using that cold hand as a pillow of sorts. "Stay...sleep."

There was silence, a pause. "Not with you smelling like him."

But his voice was wavering, and it wasn't those million-voices-in-one anymore.

He was calming down.

"Be nice...Henry." Her mind was shutting down. "He protected me."

"Protected? What do you mean he pro---?"

But she'd fallen asleep and never answered.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There were intervals where she was awoken long enough to be forced to eat and drink something, before she slept against a wonderfully cold body. She must have been bathed, because she knew Henry would keep to his word about not sleeping with her if she smelt like Mike, and she couldn't help but think that he was really exaggerating everything. She knew that Henry and Mike had bad blood between them because of their feelings for Vicki, but Henry shouldn't expect her to dislike Mike as well...or to try and kill him for what had happened. She couldn't even understand Henry's reasoning behind that act, but then again, she was only awake for a couple of minutes at a time, so she really didn't have much time to think about it.

She was sleeping half on top of Henry, cheek pressed above his unbeating heart.

Cold fingers tenderly treaded through her hair.

"How is she?"

Vicki.

Vicki was still there.

How long had Chloe been sleeping?

"Resting." Henry spoke softly, never stopping with his caresses. "Her heart's beating more regularly now, and she'll wake up in a day or two strong enough to handle me putting her over my knees."

There was a pause. "It's my fault."

"Vicki. This was Asteroth's fault....and Chloe made that choice on her own. Which we'll be having a serious conversation about when Sleeping Beauty finally wakes up." His fingers slid from her hair to her cheeks. "She won't be doing anything like that to me ever again."

Oh, of course.

This was all about _him_.

The arrogant bastard.

"MIke's fine, by the way. Thanks for asking."

"I _didn't_." Henry hissed.

"Exactly." Vicki wasn't pleased. "You threw him through the _wall_ , Henry. He's human. He could have broken something."

"He touched her."

"You saw the marks around his wrists. _She_ touched _him_."

There was a snarl, angry and fierce and full of warning.

Vicki sighed in annoyance. "Growl all you want. It's not going to change anything that happened."

There was silence, and then, and then Chloe was held tighter against Henry. " _I_ should have been there, Vicki." His voice was tight, resentful. _"I_ should have been the one there when it happened, when she---burned to death."

So Mike had given in and told them everything.

The coward.

Then again, Henry had apparently been somewhat fierce.

" _I_ should have been the one there when she re-materialized, shoulda been the one to take care of her, to...it should have been _me_." His voice was harsher, harder. "She could have disappeared forever and she didn't even let me know, didn't let me be there."

Vicki sighed, the bed sagging a little, betraying the fact that she'd sat on the edge. "Mike says that she wanted you to take care of me." She paused. "He also said that she was scared that Asteroth would possess her. She knew you wouldn't kill her."

There was that snarl again.

"See what I mean? Had it been anyone else, with no other choice, you would have killed them, Henry. In the end, even if it had been me, and you'd had to choose between my life and the well-being of the world you would have begged me to forgive you before you killed me." There was another pause. "But would you have been able to do that to Chloe?"

Chloe found it stupid that Vicki seemed to believe that Henry would kill her and yet spare Chloe.

Henry would have chosen the woman he loved over the world.

That was just how he was.

She was just too tired to wake up fully and let the brunette know that.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waking up, Chloe groaned and stretched, yawning as she opened her eyes and looked around the dark room. She was surprised to realize that she wasn't in her place anymore, but in Henry's.

"Chloe!"

She looked up and smiled when she saw Rudy hovering over in the corner. "You're better."

"Me? Oh, yeah, the flu." He nodded. "You've been out for a couple of days. I got better." He suddenly glared at her. "Don't you ever do that again. If you had died, you would have made Henry a killer, because nothing would have stopped him from killing Mike in fury for his part in your death."

Chloe frowned. "Mike didn't do anything wrong."

"Do you really think Fitzroy would have cared about technicalities if you were dead? Mike was there. Henry wasn't. Henry never would have forgiven the human for that alone." Rudy snorted, sitting Indian Style in the air. "Chloe, you just don't get it, do you? And I'm not even talking in morse code anymore--which, by the way, you really need to learn in case something like that happens again."

Chloe nodded dutifully, looking around the room. "Where's...?"

"We kicked him out. Went full poltergeist on his ass." Rudy was obviously terribly proud of said fact. "He hasn't left your side so he hadn't been feeding, and he's weak, so Lois--who's been here every day checking on the two of you---told him that he needed to be strong so he could scream at you for being so stupid when you woke up. That, along with me threatening his daddy's portrait, convinced him to leave."

"Gee. You two are a lot of help." She muttered, throwing the sheets off of her and standing, a little unsteady on her feet and yet managing to keep her balance.

The blonde looked down at herself, realizing that she was dressed in one of Henry's few t-shirts.

"Why aren't I wearing something of my own?" Chloe asked hesitantly, not at all self-conscious, standing there in her underwear and a t-shirt in front of the ghost.

"The smell." Rudy shrugged.

Chloe frowned. "What?"

"That's what he said when I asked him." The ghost apparently didn't get it either.

Deciding she wasn't awake enough to handle these questions, Chloe went to the bathroom and relieved herself. Flushing the toilet when she was finished, she washed her hands and looked at her reflection in the mirror.

She looked terrible.

The blonde winced.

No wonder Henry hadn't left her side.

She looked like she was dead.

"CHLOE?"

She was surprised to hear his voice since she hadn't heard him enter the house. "I'm here." The blonde sighed, slowly making her way towards the door and opening it. "I'm ready told be told off now fath-----." Her words whooshed out of her along with the air in her lungs as suddenly Henry was there, and he was holding her tightly, his body trembling.

"Don't _ever_ do that to me again." He whispered fiercely into her hair.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, surprising herself by feeling tears in her eyes at the thick emotion in his voice, transmitted through his every pore as he refused to let her go. The blonde held him back, closing her eyes, remembering how she'd wished, up to the last moment, that it was Henry who was there as she died. "I had to."

"No." He shook his head, voice vicious. "Next time you let whoever it is die. Even if it's the person you love the most, you let that person die!"

They both knew she wouldn't.

Henry trembled harder, fiercer, trying to restrain himself.

"Vicki?"

"Gone. They're all gone. Had to go back." Henry told her, curtly.

He must miss her.

"Is Mike--?" Chloe gasped as she was crushed against Henry when his grip tightened at that name. "Henry?"

"Don't say his name." Henry whispered in her hair pleadingly. "Please. Never again."

She didn't know about 'never again', but she wouldn't do it now.

He nuzzled the side of her face, taking in deep, obvious whiffs of her scent, as if trying to convince himself that she was awake and fine.

Her heart hurt her at the desperation in his acts.

"I don't know what I would have done...Chloe...if you had remained dead...if I'd lost you....if..." Henry whispered in her hair, voice deeper, gruffer. "I wanted to give you some time, I knew that you've been hurt and you're hesitant, always guarding yourself because of it...but I refuse to play this game again. I refuse. I _won't_ lose you."

"What game? Lose me?" Chloe was confused. "What are you---?"

And then he was kissing her. It was hard and desperate and dizzying.

Chloe held onto his to keep from falling when her knees buckled under her at the electricity running throughout her body at the touch.

She'd never...never felt...

Henry finally pulled away enough to rest his forehead against hers, looking her in his eyes, silent, waiting.

Chloe, trying to understand what was---why---and then she really stopped and thought about Henry and his behavior since he'd returned.

Especially his behavior towards Mike.

He hadn't been protective.

He'd been _jealous_.

Her eyes widened. "You...like...me."

Henry chuckled softly, nodding against her forehead. "Yeah. I have for a while now."

She gulped. "Oh."

He waited for a moment, but then cleared his throat. "Do you...like...me too?"

This was all so high school it was ridiculous.

But they couldn't help it.

They were both obviously embarrassed.

And nervous as hell.

"Yeah." She finally spoke, nodding against his forehead. "I might have...for a while now...too."

His grin was a thing of beauty, and once more Henry Fitzroy the Eternal Charmer, he captured her lips in a kiss that left her breathy and needy and hungry for more.

They clutched at each other, kissing in earnest, letting out all the want that'd been locked up for so long. As they seemed to melt down to the ground, Chloe found herself under Henry and fighting with the button of his pants, mouths never leaving each other's.

"Oh get a _room_." Rudy complained from somewhere. "You know, if this is going to happen often, we're going to have to start using some sort of ' _stay away we're humping_ ' system or something."

Henry gave the ghost the finger before retrieving his hand to do something more constructive with it, like tearing open Chloe's shirt.

" _Unbelievable_." Rudy muttered to himself as he phased through the wall into a different room and picked up the remote, turning on the television and putting the volume up...loud.

He heard Chloe crying out Henry's name.

The ghost would have blushed if he could, putting up the volume even higher in a near desperate way.

Rudy sighed in relief as finally the noise the television blocked out the sound of...

" _Henry_!"

The ghost slumped with defeat.

It was going to be a _long_ night.


End file.
